Barack Obama’s approval rating sank to the lowest level of his presidency in the first statewide
poll after revelations about snooping by the IRS and national-security officials.

Forty percent of Ohioans give Obama a positive rating, while 57 percent disapprove in a
Quinnipiac Poll released yesterday.

“The controversies ... obviously have taken a toll,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the
Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “These obviously aren’t good numbers. Whether it’s a blip
or the start of a trend, we’ll see.”

Brown said Obama’s showing in the Buckeye State virtually matches his numbers in Florida from
September 2011 as the worst among the nine states in which the Connecticut university conducts
polls. And for the first time, a majority of Ohio voters (52 percent) don’t think Obama is “honest
and trustworthy.”

Independent and female voters — who went from a 20-point approval margin to 9-point disapproval
in just two months — have changed their minds about Obama the most.

“The IRS seems to be an equal-opportunity scandal in that people on all sides of the aisle are
unhappy with it,” Brown said. “And the Justice Department activities vis a vis the media and the
various matters involving the Snowden case and electronic eavesdropping certainly annoy liberals as
much if not more than conservatives.”

The poll also shows that a potential 2016 presidential matchup between former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and either New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul would be
close: She and Christie are tied at 42 percent, while the former first lady is beating Paul by 3
points, 47 to 44.

But Vice President Joe Biden is losing to both possible GOP candidates: Christie swamps him 50
percent to 32 percent, and Paul beats him 49 percent to 40 percent.

More than three-quarters of Ohioans favor requiring background checks for people buying guns at
gun shows and online. And Ohio Sen. Rob Portman’s vote against that measure made 45 percent of
voters regard the Republican with greater disapproval, compared with 15 percent whose approval of
him increased.

Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown’s vote in favor of that same bill increased his approval among 43
percent, versus 16 percent who voiced more disapproval.

Ohioans are now split over whether to expand Medicaid, the federal-state health-care program for
the poor and disabled. The poll shows that 46 percent favor the change and 47 percent oppose
it.

The telephone poll, which included land lines and cellphones, was conducted June 18 through
Sunday and involved 941 randomly selected registered Ohio voters. It has a margin of sampling error
of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.